


We Clean Up And Now It's Time To Learn

by LayALioness



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friendship Bracelets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 09:59:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6901318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s not going to bite you. It’s just a bracelet.”</p><p>Lexa frowns. “A what?” She strokes the cloth gently, like the pelt of an animal, like she’s afraid it might break.</p><p>Bellamy hums, trying to think. “Like, decoration. For your body. A token of friendship.”</p><p>“Friendship,” Lexa repeats, quiet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Clean Up And Now It's Time To Learn

**Author's Note:**

> anyway there's been an influx of brollexa love on tumblr recently so here, have this thing.

When Bellamy and Octavia were little, they used to sneak scraps of material from their mom’s table and knot them into little bracelets that they’d wear around their wrists and ankles so they could pretend they were the nice kind of accessories that the upper class sometimes had, either family heirlooms or metal trinkets bought at the exchange on the ark. Their mother was always furious when she found out, because that was an extra seven inches that could have gone into Mrs. Hildy’s hem, and earned a few more rations--so they learned to never get caught.

On the ground, Bellamy hasn’t had much time to think about little cloth accessories, until now. The ceasefire has held for nearly a year; it probably helps that they’ve moved from Arkadia, assimilating into Polis not quite _seamlessly_ , but something like it. Bellamy was expecting much more resistance from the local population but as it turned out, the average grounder was more than willing to welcome the sky people they’d heard stories about--sometimes going further. It isn’t unusual to hear English being spoken freely, by everyone. The elderly stick closely to Trigedasleng, like they’re worried if they give it up, it might be lost forever. Or maybe it’s just the stubbornness that comes with age.

Children pratter between the two easily, kicking half-deflated soccer balls rescued from bunkers, wearing some strange mixture of grounder _and_  arker fashion. It’s like someone took Bellamy’s people, and transplanted them into the city, like a card deck that’s been shuffled so thoroughly that you can’t tell what might be laid down next.

It’s peaceful here, or at least, as peaceful as he’s ever seen it. Even more than the Ark was, although he can’t say he’s surprised by that. The Ark, now that his memories are no longer clouded by the fear of a young boy, or the nostalgia that he’s prone to, was really nothing more than a prison all on it’s own. The council waged war with laws and paperwork; at least the grounders are honest about their violence.

Bellamy’s been _promoted_  to some sort of official position. He’s still not really sure what the title Clarke got him means, other than the fact that he gets to live in the palace, and he’s forced to attend a lot of boring meetings about agriculture and property lines. It’s all very bureaucratic. He hates it very much.

But Clarke had asked--begged him, really, close to tears and voice shaking--not to leave with the others, heading towards the front lines to fight some nameless grounders who liked to skin their enemies. And Bellamy’s back had started to itch, where the scars are, remembering what happened the last time she’d said those words. _I can’t lose you._

So he’d stayed, tucked away in the grounder palace like some buried treasure or, more likely, a forgotten handmaiden. He’d preferred the ancient myths to his mother’s regency romances, which she hid under her bunk, like she thought children didn’t know all about secret places--but Bellamy had always read anything he could get his hands on. It’s the only reason he knows anything at all about quantum physics, or the history of the grilled cheese sandwich, even though he’s never even had one.

Bellamy yawns; it’s sometime in the late morning, judging by the sun, but he’s done next to nothing all day, and it’s hard to keep his eyes open. He needs something to do with his hands, and spies some sort of handkerchief, or maybe just a very small scarf, lying on a nearby table. He’s in what might be called a sitting room, if the describer was being liberal with their words. Bellamy snatches up the piece of cloth and sits back on the deer-skin stool, getting to work. He hasn’t made a bracelet in years, not since before Octavia was arrested, but his hands seem to remember the steps. Some things, your skin never seems to forget.

That’s how Lexa finds him, deeply concentrating on the craft in his lap, so she has to kick at his boot, to catch his attention.

“Your teaching starts soon,” she says, but her eyes are glued to what’s in his hands, curious and a little confused. It’s a common look for her, since they’ve moved here. 

Bellamy’s learned over the months that Lexa is usually curious about their sky slang and customs, but she’s easily embarrassed, and so never wants to actually _ask_. She doesn’t want them to know she doesn’t understand things, because she was raised to believe that, with the guidance of the previous commanders, there is nothing she does not know--and if there is, then it must not be important.

“You’re a bit of an asshole,” he’d said, easy, once he figured it out. And then he’d had to explain the meaning behind _asshole_ , so she could feel properly insulted.

“So are you,” she’d said back, and they’d both grinned a little. She was easy to like, once he got past the fact that she tried to kill them all. To be fair, most people have tried to kill them by now, and anyway, it’s not like she succeeded.

He’s pretty sure she likes him because he’s the only person who does things like call her  _asshole_ , but he could be wrong. 

The only good thing about living in the palace--besides Lexa, Clarke, and the handful of guards and servants that Bellamy actually likes--is his class.

It’d taken him a few days of exploring to realize that there were _kids_  in the palace. And warrior kids too, being trained by Lexa, molded into tiny versions of her. It sort of freaked him out at first, the whole religion, the idea of multiple spirits living inside one person’s brain, telling them what to do and how to lead. But Clarke did her best to explain it the way Titus had told her, and Bellamy managed to gather the rest of it in bits and pieces along the way. He’s still not completely sold on the whole thing, but it doesn’t seem _so_  creepy now. Just a little.

After that, he’d managed to sneak into one of the lessons themselves, held in the great room or the throne room or whatever it’s called. Bellamy stood in the back, near the pillars, and watched as Lexa detailed the history of the first Commander who fell from the stars, and the rise and spread of their people, and the duty they each have to the blood--the last bit makes him shiver.

And then suddenly the lesson was over, and Bellamy was watching them start to leave.

“That’s it?” he asked, falling into step beside Lexa. Her shoulders tensed and she glared at him, which meant he caught her off guard, and he grinned.

“What do you mean?”

“That’s all you’re going to teach them?” he clarifies. “Just stuff about being Commander?”

Lexa frowned in that pensive way she did. He wasn’t convinced her face wouldn’t get stuck like that, one day. “What else should I be teaching them?” she asked. “What more would they need to know?”

Bellamy gaped a little, he couldn’t help it. It was just-- _how_  could she think that was all there was to learn? “I don’t know--history? Not just of the grounders, but before the grounders too. Geography, Physics, Biology, English, Latin, that kind of thing.”

Lexa pursed her lips, clearly doing her best to swallow whatever questions she might have. Bellamy dug his elbow into her rib, to push them out, and she squeaked, completely un-Commander-like. 

“I am not entirely sure what those are,” she admitted, grudgingly, but once they turned the corner and were out of sight of the guards, she whirled around and hit him square in the shoulder. Lexa, Bellamy had come to find out, had a very solid punch. 

“Let me teach them, then,” Bellamy offered, rubbing his shoulder a little gingerly. It would definitely bruise. Lexa cocked her head, considering.

“If you wish to, I will not stop you,” she decided. “But it must be after their training.”

“Deal,” he agreed, and they shook on it--once he directed her hand, and explained the point behind the motion.

Since that day, Bellamy has spent every afternoon with the children. Clarke calls them _Nightbloods_  but Bellamy doesn’t like that term. They’re just kids, after all, no matter what color they bleed. No matter how many weapons Lexa puts in their hands. No matter how many spirits they plan to trap in their skulls.

And he likes it, for the most part. The kids are curious and eager to learn, eager to please, and very well disciplined. Bellamy teaches them what he can remember from his school years on the Ark, and when he realizes there are some gaps in his lesson plans, he goes to Titus and asks about books. He knows there are some; he’s bargained for a few from the trading markets, and found several more stacked and coated in dust within bunkers. Titus, grudgingly it must be said, put a memo out that one of the Skaikru Ambassadors was looking for any and all tomes, and suddenly Bellamy’s collection spanned the walls of his entire quarters. 

Lexa’s still eyeing the little bracelet, and so Bellamy reaches over and takes her hand, sliding it over her knuckles, to rest on her wrist. Lexa looks at it, warily, holding her whole arm a little away from her body. Bellamy laughs.

“It’s not going to _bite_  you. It’s just a bracelet.”

Lexa frowns. “A what?” She strokes the cloth gently, like the pelt of an animal, like she’s afraid it might break.

Bellamy hums, trying to think. “Like, decoration. For your body. A token of friendship.”

“Friendship,” Lexa repeats, quiet. Then she clears her throat and stands. “You are running late. The students will be waiting.”

Bellamy nods, trying hard not to feel stupid. It’s just a cloth bracelet, and it wasn’t even very fine cloth to begin with. Lexa’s being polite now, but the moment he leaves she’ll probably toss the thing. Which will be fine because again, it’s stupid.

“You don’t have to wear it,” he blurts as they walk, and Lexa raises a single eyebrow. 

“It is a token,” she says simply as she follows him to the throne room. She likes to sit in while he teaches, because she likes the stories. He’s caught her practicing the writing exercises he’s shown the kids--even though math is more her strong point. “Of our friendship. I will wear it, always.”

Now it’s Bellamy’s turn to cough, flustered, and he doesn’t miss the smug look in Lexa’s eye. He scowls. “Wow, who knew you were such a sap?”

“I could kill you right now, in seven ways,” she says, not missing a beat, and Bellamy trips her.

The next day, Bellamy’s working on a new lesson plan, scribbling with the ballpoint pen that Octavia brough back for him, from one of her war raids, in the notebook that Clarke wrapped up in a doily cloth on what she’d guessed to be his birthday, even though they’d never know for sure. When Bellamy was a boy, he remembers getting two presents; the first was a small blanket that his mother had sewn from what used to be a jacket. When he was six, the blanket became Octavia’s, because she was so tiny and he thought it might protect her from the world. 

The second, he got when he was ten; a battered copy of _The Iliad_. And that present was his own. He thumbed through it every chance he got, and read each word to Octavia as she gurgled and mouthed at the corners of what used to be his blanket. He memorized the story, he read it so much, and then when he was fourteen, he traded it at the exchange, because they hadn’t had rations for two days and his family was starving.

Bellamy got used to sleeping on the floor on the Ark, when Octavia went through her growth spurt, and suddenly they could no longer both fit. There were only the two bunks, and their mother had a bad back, so it fell to Bellamy, to give his up. Sometimes he’d wake up to find Octavia had sunk down beside him, because she didn’t want him to get lonely down there, all alone.

And now he has a bedroom bigger than their whole apartment had been. He has a massive bed covered in fur and filled with the feathers of some bird he’s never seen. It shouldn’t be the bed that overwhelms him, all things considered; he lives in a _palace_ , after all. There are more stunning parts of the tower, more obvious shows of wealth and success.

But it is the bed, because these things can be tricky. And sometimes Bellamy can’t even look at it without hating himself, because--he hadn’t even had a _blanket_ , and now he wears fancy belts made of rich leather, and new boots that Lexa had made specially because she saw the tread on his old pair was wearing thin. And he knows there are other little boys out there somewhere, sleeping on the floor so that their sisters don’t have to, trying to ignore the gnawing hollow in their bellies, and Bellamy hates everything about his life now, but most of all he hates that he doesn’t _actually_  hate it at all.

Usually on these days, the particularly bad days, when Octavia is gone doing god knows what to god knows whom, Bellamy seeks out Raven, because Raven _gets_  it. And as much as he loves Clarke--and _fuck_ , he loves Clarke--she never had to worry about where her next meal would come from. She never went to bed cold or hungry, at least, not growing up. Not like he and Octavia and Raven did. Even Miller grew up privileged, a part of the Alpha Elite. 

But Raven’s on some sort of scouting trip with Sinclair, in search of spare car batteries or something that they can use to do something he won’t understand. Build a spaceship maybe, or a robot. Something big, because it’s always big with Raven. Big and filled with explosives.

So instead he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, because he didn’t feel like sitting on the stool, and he’s holding gifts that weren’t stolen, weren’t sacrificed for, were just _given_ , because they wanted to make him happy. And Bellamy’s still trying to come to terms with that.

Lexa shows up early, and he’s about to tell her so, to point out that he’s still got hours before the lessons start, but she just silently walks up, drops something into his lap, and then leaves.

Bellamy stares down at the thing on his notebook, and then gingerly scoops it up, to get a better look. It’s a bracelet, made of some shimmery yarn that glints green in the sunlight, and strung with beads made out of a material he can’t name. They shift color each way he turns the accessory, sometimes blue-green, sometimes red-orange, depending. It looks beautiful, and expensive. It’s clearly a bracelet.

Lexa, as far as he knows, has yet to take hers off. She wears it every single day, always on the same wrist, and the edges of the material are started to grow faded and soft, so he thinks she must wear it to her baths, and in bed. He keeps waiting for it to unknot and fall off without her noticing, to be lost forever. Or for her to grow tired of it, and simply toss it out herself. But so far, that hasn’t happened.He’s even caught her fiddling with it sometimes, at meetings, or while she’s on her throne, like it’s become a habit. Like she’s making sure it’s still there.

Bellamy carefully places the beaded bracelet in the drawer beside his bed, before heading to teach the day’s lesson. Lexa isn’t there, probably because she’s ridiculous when it comes to emotions, and is silently losing her mind over the bracelet, somewhere in her chambers. 

The first time she called him _Bellamy_  instead of _Blake_ , she was drunk and leaning heavily on his shoulder, because they’d begun a game of Chess and she refused to let him teach her how to play, and she was a sore loser. She’d avoided him for all of the next morning, which only stung a little--he’d thought they’d become, if not friends than at least _friendly_. After all there’s nothing like a game of drunk Chess and stories about dead girlfriends to bring two people together.

Finally, after two full days of being avoided, he went to Clarke.

“Lexa’s just bad with feelings,” she’d shrugged. “She thinks caring about people is weakness.”

“Well that’s bullshit,” Bellamy said, and then he marched up to Lexa’s room, and told her that very thing.

She’d glared up at him from her nest of furs, where she was bundled up like a small child, so that only her hair and the tip of her nose showed throguh. “You don’t understand,” she’d accused, and Bellamy scoffed.

“ _I_  don’t understand trust and intimacy issues?” he’d snorted. “Seriously?” And then he’d sat down on the end of her bed, because he’d been standing all day and his legs were sore and anyway, fuck propriety. “You’re not the only one who’s lost someone they cared about,” he added, softly, and Lexa sighed.

“I know,” she’d agreed, and Bellamy hit her with her own pillow.

“Then stop acting like it.”

She’s gotten better since then, and so Bellamy decides to let her be; she’ll come out of hiding eventually, so he spends the night with Clarke, as they take turns, trying to see who can make Titus sigh the deepest.

Lexa’s in the dining hall for breakfast in the morning, and the moment she sees Bellamy, her eyes zero in on his wrist. When she sees the lack of bracelet there, her face falls, and Bellamy can’t help feeling a little guilty. It’s just--it looks so _expensive_  and painstakingly crafted, and he’s worried it might be ruined if he actually wears it about. Lexa pulls at the frayed cloth around her own arm, seemingly without realizing. Clarke ignores them both and begins to stuff her face with food. Bellamy hides back a smile. Food, and specifically the food prepared by Lexa’s very talented personal chefs, has become Clarke Griffin’s main love. He can’t really blame her for it; the first time he tried actual, _fresh_  vegetables, Bellamy cried.

“You are not wearing your token,” Lexa points out, carefully masking the hurt in her voice, but Bellamy’s an expert on hurt, and he can tell it’s still there.

“I didn’t want it to break, or get lost,” he says, and it’s true, but it’s not the _whole_  truth. He’s just not sure how to explain that he doesn’t want to wear her gift because every time he looks at it, he’ll be reminded of all the little boys who could be fed by it.

“If it does, I will just make you a new one,” Lexa says, like it’s obvious, and Bellamy gawks at her.

“You _made_  it?” For some reason, he’d just assumed she’d had it made, or bought it in the market. He hadn’t thought for one second that she might have crafted it herself.

“You made mine,” Lexa points out. “It seemed--fair. Even.”

“Yours is just a scrap of cloth,” Bellamy says, suddenly feeling much more self conscious than he had in a while. He’s fairly good with his hands, and a needle. His mother had taught him all her tricks, before she died; he could easily make something better. Embroidered, even. He could take his time, and think out the design more. Hem the edges so that this time, they wouldn’t fray.

But Lexa just smiles at her own bracelet, fond. “I like my scrap of cloth.”

Across the table, Clarke swallows a bite of smoked boar too quickly and starts to cough. Titus strides forward from wherever it is he’d been lurking, and slams a hand against her back, until she stops.

Bellamy clears his own throat and turns back to Lexa. “I like mine too,” he assures her. “I’ll put it start wearing it..”

“Good, you should,” she sniffs. “I spent hours making it.” Bellamy rolls his eyes; apparently the moment was over.

Bellamy makes good on his promise, heading right to his room after their meal, and fetching the bracelet from its hiding place. He slips it on and feels the weight of the beads settling against the bones of his wrist; he’ll have to get used to it.


End file.
